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(SACRAMENTO, CA) - BETRAYAL, written by two former MCAS El Toro Marines, Robert O’Dowd, Salem-News investigative reporter and disabled veteran, and Tim King, photojournalist and war correspondent, is a thrilling and informative nonfiction account of contamination at two Marine Corps installations—Marine Corps Air Station El Toro on the West Coast (CA) and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune on the East Coast (NC).

BETRAYAL tells the story of the thousands of veterans and their families, once stationed at these hazardous military installations, who have continued to be ignored by the U.S. government by denial of the effects of exposure to environmental hazards, including the highest incidence of occurrence of male breast cancer in any other demographic in the U.S. Legislation to provide health care for Camp Lejeune veterans and their dependents was passed in the 112th Congress. No veteran’s compensation was included in the Janey Ensminger Act.

None of the veterans that served aboard these two installations were notified of their exposure to deadly contaminants when it was discovered resulting in both bases earning Superfund Clean up Site status. Many veterans have died without ‘connecting the dots’ between their killing disease and military service at either, or both, of these two installations. King and O’Dowd hope to change the course of a government that chooses to ignore veterans until death silences their pleas for assistance.

BETRAYAL includes the story of the death and murder of Marine Colonel James E. Sabow, decorated Vietnam combat pilot with 221 missions, whose death has been tied to the use of El Toro’s assets during the 1980s and 1990s to import South American cocaine into the U.S and to export guns to the Nicaraguan Contra rebel faction.
Colonel Sabow was found dead in his quarters by his wife on January 22, 1991. The circumstances surrounding his death, the forensic evidence, and independent medical experts support homicide, while the government called the death a homicide. There’s evidence of crime scene tampering and murder by a government assassination team and a twenty year government cover-up, including a ‘doctored autopsy photograph’ submitted in an NCIS report to Congress in 2004.
The death certificate was signed by the Orange County coroner; the autopsy done by a pathologist under contract to the Orange County. The autopsy report makes no mention of the tramline bruise on the body caused by a violent blow from a baseball bat, lead pipe or similar object. The California Attorney General has the authority to require a formal inquest, but no action has been taken by the state.

BETRAYAL reports the destruction of environmental records and the denial of responsibility and the cover-up to hide the truth of environmental contamination from veterans, their dependents, civilian workers, and the public at MCAS El Toro, one the premier Marine Corps jet fighter base. These include no usage records on TCE and other organic solvents used on the base for decades; Marine Corps’ denial of ownership of the TCE plume spreading into Orange County until a lawsuit forced the government to accept responsibility; loss of the official government contract procurement file for the municipal water purchase with the Irvine Ranch Water District; loss of all of the original well construction drawings; over 40 years of water distribution engineering drawings missing; no records on the dates the base wells were abandoned but several engineering drawings showing the base wells part of the water distribution system after the early purchase of softened municipal water possibly purchased to reduce hardened well water from very high levels of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), corrosive salts, in aquifer under the base.

At El Toro, the base wells may have been in production until TCE was found off base in 1985. The base entire set of water distribution engineering drawings redrawn in 1986; discovery of a well screen opened in the contaminated SGU (shallow groundwater unit) in 1998 and all the remaining wells sealed in concrete without inspection for their well screens. TCE drums were buried on the base one El Toro Marine dead from Agent Orange exposure who never served in Vietnam; and a radiation contaminated hangar shuddered and sealed in 2012, ten years after the Navy reported the hangar free of radiation.

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James L Benesh September 17, 2012 12:59 pm (Pacific time)

I served from 1974 thru 1976 at El Toro. I have for the last 6 years suffered from some kind of reocurrung skin rash that breaks out over my entire body mostly between my knees and ankles my forearms my wrists and hands belly just wonder if this could be becasue of exposure

Richard Matteoli September 17, 2012 2:15 am (Pacific time)

Was at both. Worked in the clinics as a health care provider. Not one word mentioned.

Anonymous September 16, 2012 9:09 am (Pacific time)

How does this book differ from the other one you guys put out on this subject, A Few Good Men, Too Many Chemicals?

Tim King: This is a slight revision of the first title, there is more great information in this and Robert O'Dowd deserves a medal for all of his excellent, hard work on this, thank you.